Busy, busy.

I do like to stay busy. Sometimes on my days off, I don't know what to do with myself. That said, I'm just a tad bit busier than I like to be right now. We've got foster care classes all day tomorrow and a Halloween party with the homeschool group tomorrow night. We need to work on the flooring on Sunday and we've got a field trip on Monday. We have our foster care first homestudy meeting on Friday with a home walkthrough/safety evaluation, so of course we have to clean our house a bit (okay, A LOT) and put our medicines in locked boxes. My bedroom, which tends to be a storehouse for all the stuff we don't know where else to put and my teenager's room, which is a total train wreck, need to be cleaned up. I'll be glad when all the classes are over. Tomorrow is our last all-day one and then we only have half a day next week. That will be a relief to have our Saturdays back and to be DONE.

We will also have to start back to school at some point! I really don't think a 2 1/2 week fall break is appropriate but it might be necessary to get this all done. I may have to think of some independent study type things for the 2 younger ones to do. Maybe Grandma would like to go over their fractions with them? Probably not.

Making my day.

I had 2 comments today that kind of made my day. My youngest son was talking with the receptionist at his doctor's office and told her that we homeschool and told her that "other kids have to worry about whether they'll like their teacher, but I know I like mine." and also said that his mom had a hard job because one kid is in 9th grade, one is in 6th and he is in 4th and she has to teach all of them, but "she handles it really well." What a compliment coming from my 9 year old! (That is the way he talks, sounds like he's 9 going on 30 sometimes!)

Then later tonight, at Wal-mart, the lady put the prescription slip in front of me to sign then said "You are over 18 aren't you?" LoL. I loved that one. I don't know if Wal-mart's new policy is to flatter the middle aged, but I'm all for it if it is!

Fall Break continued.

We did have fall break yesterday and it's looking good for today too. I have several things I need to do and youngest son has a doctor's appointment mid-day at 1:00. I think we may even stay 'off' until Monday. The public school kids around here took 7 or 8 days earlier this month, so this shouldn't put us behind them in the number of days. I do like to finish in late May or early June about the same time they do, but hey, we can take an educational field trip on a Saturday or Sunday to make a day up. We have been watching Mythbusters, is pretty educational, although I'm not counting the hours or anything!

When we start back we'll be covering the American Civil War in our history lessons, so I've been looking around for some good books to read to go along with it.

This week.

I'm not sure what we are going to do this week, as far as school goes. We have quite a few things to do that are not school related. I have something written on my calendar every day this week. We may need to take a bit more fall break and try to get this other stuff done or we may just dive in and do work, school, housecleaning and a bunch of errands all at the same time. I'm not sure. We might do a half day of school each day this week so we can get 2 1/2 days done. I have to go to the grocery, pick up prescriptions, do fingerprinting for foster care, get the rest of that foster care paperwork done, finish halloween costumes, make something to take for the foster care dinner on Saturday and make chili for the homeschool party on Saturday night, plan Awana, set it up and teach it, get groceries, take youngest son to a doctor's appointment on Wednesday that is a half an hour drive each way and lasts an hour and somehow, get this house cleaned up and I need to do it while working around 30 hours this week and homeschooling the kids. With my fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, I also have to have a little rest period (okay, nap) each day. It's just one of those busy, busy times that hit every now and then. It seems like everything happens at once, doesn't it? When it rains, it pours.* My November calendar is looking pretty blank and I think I'll try and keep it that way as much as possible!

*Speaking of rain, it actually is raining outside! We got an inch of rain yesterday and it's looking good for today too. We really needed it.

Today.

We had the co-op with Mad Science this morning. I was a little disappointed. I thought it was just going to be so cool, and it was just okay. They did a cornstarch and water slime thing and a crystal growing thing, both of which we've done at home a couple of times, so for us, both of the experiments were kind of old hat. I think that I could have done at least as good of a job teaching it myself, and for a lot less money.

As my youngest son's friend wrote in a letter last week, "I am out of words."

Working.

This is one of the pictures my daughter took that did not have a cat or a dog in it, so I thought I'd share.

As far as this weekend goes, we got through another foster care class. I think we really lucked out by going to another county and getting these instructors because they're really good. That took up most of the day yesterday. For today, I'll be working. My job now only seems to have a decent amount of work on weekends for some reason. I hope this is just a temporary thing because I really don't want to have to change jobs.

For tomorrow, we've got a co-op tomorrow with our homeschool group and Mad Science is going to come and do a science class. We're all looking forward to that.

Meanwhile, I'm off to work.

Stuff.

We did our second day of fall break today. Since there wasn't much work in my job queue (actually none at all) we worked on halloween costumes. We got my younger son's dragon ninja almost done and my daughter's Hermione almost done. My oldest son, I think, is going as a Jedi again this year and he already has the cloak so that should be pretty easy. I hope. I got a couple of small things done around the house too, but no where near what I wanted to get done. My back started hurting halfway through the day and continues to hurt despite Tylenol.

Anyway, speaking of Hermione and the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling has done an interview about the Christian imagery and message in her books. It's here. I love these books.

In other news, there is work in the work queue now, at 8:00 pm, so I'm going to start working. I guess I should be thankful that there is work, but I'm feeling a bit whiney because my back hurts and it's late and I could be relaxing with my family now. I guess I'd better quit whining about it and just do it, shouldn't I?

I gave the camera to my daughter and told her to take some current fall pictures.

Here's one of the ones she took. About half were of the pretty trees and about half were of our cats and dogs.